The present invention relates to fuser apparatus for electrostatographic printing machines and in particular to release agent management (RAM) systems for a heat and pressure roll fuser.
In imaging systems commonly used today, a charge retentive surface is typically charged to a uniform potential and thereafter exposed to a light source to thereby selectively discharge the charge retentive surface to form a latent electrostatic image thereon. The image may comprise the discharged portions and/or the charged portions of the charge retentive surface, the former in the case of tri-level imaging and the latter in the case of conventional xerography. The light source may comprise any well known device such as a light lens scanning system or a laser beam. Subsequently, the electrostatic latent image on the charge retentive surface is rendered visible by developing the image with developer powder referred to in the art as toner. The most common development systems employ developer which comprises both charged carrier particles and charged toner particles which triboelectrically adhere to the carrier particles. During development, the toner particles are attracted from the carrier particles by the charged pattern of the image areas of the charge retentive surface to form a powder image thereon. This toner image may be subsequently transferred to a support surface such as plain paper to which it may be permanently affixed by heating or by the application of pressure or a combination of both.
In order to fix or fuse the toner material onto a support member permanently by heat, it is necessary to elevate the temperature of the toner material to a point at which constituents of the toner material coalesce and become tacky. This action causes the toner to flow to some extent onto the fibers or pores of the support members or otherwise upon the surfaces thereof. Thereafter, as the toner material cools, solidification of the toner material occurs causing the toner material to be bonded firmly to the support member.
One approach to thermal fusing of toner material images onto the supporting substrate has been to pass the substrate with the unfused toner images thereon between a pair of opposed roller members at least one of which is heated. During operation of a fusing system of this type, the support member to which the toner images are electrostatically adhered is moved through the nip formed between the rolls with the toner image contacting the heated fuser roll to thereby effect heating of the toner images within the nip. Typical of such fusing devices are two roll systems wherein the fusing roll is coated with an adhesive material, such as a silicone rubber or other low surface energy elastomer or, for example, tetrafluoroethylene resin sold by E. I. DuPont De Nemours under the trademark Teflon. In these fusing systems, however, since the toner image is tackified by heat it frequently happens that a part of the image carried on the supporting substrate will be retrained by the heated fuser roller and not penetrate into the substrate surface. The tackified toner may stick to the surface of the fuser roll and offset to a subsequent sheet of support substrate or offset to the pressure roll when there is no sheet passing through a fuser nip resulting in contamination of the pressure roll with subsequent offset of toner from the pressure roll to the image substrate.
To obviate the foregoing toner offset problem it has been common practice to utilize toner release agents such as silicone oil, in particular, polydimethyl silicone oil, which is applied to the fuser roll surface to a thickness of the order of about 1.times.10.sup.-9 meters to act as a toner release material. These materials possess a relatively low surface energy and have been found to be materials that are suitable for use in the heated fuser roll environment. In practice, a thin layer of silicone oil is applied to the surface of the heated roll to form an interface between the roll surface and the toner image carried on the support material. Thus, a low surface energy, easily parted layer is presented to the toners that pass through the fuser nip and thereby prevents toner from adhering to the fuser roll surface.
Various systems have been used to deliver release agent fluid to the fuser roll including the use of oil soaked rolls and wicks with and without supply sumps and/or reservoirs as well as oil impregnated
Another type of RAM system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,214,549 granted to Rabin Moser on Jul. 29, 1980. As disclosed therein, release agent material is contained in a sump from which it is dispensed using a metering roll and a donor roll, the former of which contacts the release agent material and the latter of which contacts the surface of the heated fuser roll.
A large part of the cost of servicing mid-volume copiers is related to adding silicone oil to the sump. The problem is particularly aggravated when relatively high (i.e. 13,000 cs) viscosity oil is utilized. The high viscosity oils require relatively long periods of time for sump replenishment. Moreover, conventional methods of oil replacement such as pouring from a bottle are quite messy as well as time consuming in the case of the high viscosity oils.
The problems that release agent materials cause in xerographic imaging products is well known. One of the biggest problems with oil is the havoc it creates if it leaks into the wrong place. Moreover, the service of parts contaminated with oil presents problem.